Alive and Well and Never Left the Hotel Room: October 13, 2000
This is my second day in Belgium and I’ve yet to leave the Airport Holiday Inn much less sample the culinary delights from any of the finer establishments in perhaps the most gastronomically self aware country in the world. All of this will be rectified tomorrow as I journey to points as yet unknown in the company of a Hertz car.
Today your occasionally humble scribe, my partner Bobby, and our noble sidekick Chris facilitated a deep-dive go-to-market strategy session with the assembled European management team of one of our very favorite clients. This continental throng was brought to the battlegrounds of Europe to hear the good news that as a result of the purchase of one company by another, some of them would be losing their jobs, and all of them could now look forward to new job descriptions, changes in their power base, and a general great upheaval in their professional lives. It was with that as a backdrop that your intrepid crew sallied forth to serve as canny guides through a thoughtful examination of possible go-to-market strategies.
Never one to leave the obvious unexplored, I started the proceedings with greetings from California—the state in which I pay taxes—and a brief list of what I regarded as our great state’s most significant contributions to global culture: Levi’s, wine in boxes, Rambo movies, and the universally applicable “duuude.” I am grateful to report that the locals found this little attempt at humor worth a chuckle and we were off to the races.
To those unfamiliar with the work I do, this particular workshop is built on a session and method devoted to working senior managers through the contemplation of no less than four possible go-to-market strategies. The intent is to spur deep thinking and conversation about competitive advantage, as well as ultimately require the group to make singular decisions about how to go-to-market for each of their significant revenue streams.
Truth be told, it had been some time since I’d led a workshop over there. In this particular case, we were also premiering a new method and framework. There was the part about not speaking the native tongues and being from you know where. Oh yeah, and that reorganization and “fallen comrades” part.
But into the maw we strove and low and behold, with only the occasional tap dance, we managed to cover ourselves in glory as the group spent the better part of six hours working through strategies and implications. The participants did some really good thinking and in the end arrived at some important decisions that we’re looking forward to helping them implement. Our sponsor was thrilled as he could possibly be, the participants actually seemed to enjoy themselves greatly, our engagement is secure and growing, my partners are on the plane home to the great PX, and all is right with my little corner of the world.
On that later note, I will mention how odd it is to be sitting in a Holiday Inn in Brussels writing this whilst the Middle East has once again erupted into violence and the State Department has issued some sort of travel advisory for this very city.
During my previous European trip, young Mr. Kennedy managed to cartwheel his plane into the sea, killing himself and two others. The European trip before that featured the death and funeral of the People’s Princess. I’m refusing to take blame for any of these untoward events, but you should know that I will be coming back to the continent later this year in case you’re thinking of going long in the market or going for a plane or car ride with a celebrity.
. . . (continued)
Postcard from Ypres, Bruges, and Brussels
Sleeping, Talking, and Walking Around
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